Conventionally, in a transaction data processing apparatus such as a POS (Point-of-Sale) terminal, a receipt (hereinafter, referred to as a paper receipt) is issued by printing required items on a receipt paper after a settlement is completed.
On the other hand, in recent years, an electronic receipt system is being introduced. In the electronic receipt system, a user can see digital receipt data (hereinafter, referred to as electronic receipt data) with an arbitrary information terminal.
Conventionally, the transaction data processing apparatus belonging to the electronic receipt system first generates print data for issuing a paper receipt. Then, the transaction data processing apparatus analyzes the print data to extract information that is necessarily included in electronic receipt data, and determines an information type indicating category of the information on the basis of a position of the information on the paper receipt. Furthermore, the transaction data processing apparatus generates the electronic receipt data as data indicating the extracted information and association of the extracted information with the information type determined on the extracted information.
By constituting processing as described above, it is possible even for the conventional transaction data processing apparatus that issues the paper receipt to adapt to the electronic receipt system by adding a function of generating the electronic receipt data from the print data through the foregoing processing. The function is realized in such a manner that a processor for controlling the transaction data processing apparatus executes an application program. The function is called as, for example, an electronic receipt agent. Further, the foregoing application program is called as, for example, an agent program.
However, in a case in which the electronic receipt data is generated through the processing described above, a relationship between the position at which the information is indicated on the paper receipt and the information type thereof needs to be known beforehand. In other words, processing by the electronic receipt agent may be different according to formats of paper receipts. Thus, it is necessary to prepare different agent programs to correspond to different specifications of transaction data processing. Under such circumstances, it is desired that a common agent program can be applied to the generation of the electronic receipt data regardless of the different specifications of transaction data processing.